


Ghostly Ever After

by Tiny_Dragongirl



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Child Warlock Dowling, Death is the narrator, Haunted Houses, Lower Tadfield (Good Omens), M/M, Mild Language, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Oblivious Crowley (Good Omens), Weddings, every ghost story needs a governess right?, weird spiritual mumbojumbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24790516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiny_Dragongirl/pseuds/Tiny_Dragongirl
Summary: They say it’s all sorted out after you are dead—but sometimes, just sometimes, things need a bit of sorting-out even after you are dead. Aziraphale Fell and Anthony J. Crowley, professional paranormal investigators, might be the perfect candidates for handling problems of the supernatural, after-life kind. Only if they would sort out their own lives while they are alive…A romantic comedy, where ghosts are gathering, tempers are flaring, and love is rising above all.
Relationships: Anathema Device/Newton Pulsifer, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 70
Kudos: 85
Collections: Good AUmens AU Fest





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my entry for the Good AUmens Fest.
> 
> Beta'd by [chewb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewb/pseuds/chewb)—thank you so much!

Later, Mimi Tracy remembered the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong.

NO. SOME STORIES SHOULD NOT BE TOLD BACKWARDS.

It was a nice day. What’s more, since all the previous six days had been nice, it was a nice week indeed. A whole week without rain in England? But that was about to change…

NO, THIS IS NOT HOW THIS STORY STARTS EITHER.

This story starts in a garden that belongs to an old house with creaky floorboards and dusty hallways, with long banisters to be treated as slides, and shadowy corners for playing hide-and-seek. The perfect place where creativity and children could run wild. It should have been buzzing with life, but at the beginning of this story only four people (one of them a mere toddler) resided at the Dowling Estate.

On that seventh-in-a-row nice day Mimi Tracy, the housekeeper, was standing in the garden, right next to the stone birdbath happily jetting water into the heavy summer air. It was an old birdbath and quite cumbersome, and its base was carved into a small statue showing an angel battling with the devil. However, Mimi Tracy was completely ignorant of artistic details that morning. She seemed to be waiting for someone, her eyes fixed on the main road, ignoring the summer heat that was growing stronger with every minute.

Her patience finally paid off when a 1926 Bentley pulled up to the gate and two figures emerged from it. They were an odd pair, to say the least, and they didn’t appear to be experts of supernatural mysteries. If anything, in Mimi Tracy’s opinion, one of them looked to be a bookseller, dropped here right from the Victorian era with his tartan bowtie and spotless white coat, while the other one gave the impression of a washed-up rock star, tattooed and dressed in all black. Maybe not what she had expected, but Mimi Tracy considered herself to be not-young-enough to be surprised and had learnt to cook with what she had, so to speak, long ago.

“Mr. Fell? Mr. Crowley?” she called out to them, rushing to the gate.

“Mrs. Tracy, I presume,” the man with the bowtie nodded and extended a hand. “Aziraphale Fell. This is my partner, Anthony Crowley.”

“How do you do? I’m so glad you came. Welcome! And really early—! You must have left London at dawn.”

“Actually, Crowley is quite a speed demon—”

“Maybe if we could focus on the task at hand?” Crowley pointed a long, bony finger at the building. “I assume this is the house you were talking about on the phone.”

“Yes. The Dowling Estate— or so it’s been called for a fortnight now, since the Dowlings moved in.”

“Splendid. We can’t wait to meet them, can we, Crowley?” This was accompanied by a pointed look.

“Right, about that—” Mimi Tracy knew this moment would come, probably sooner than later, and there it was. “The Dowlings, you see, they aren’t expecting you.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I told you that Mr. Dowling asked for help with the situation because an American ambassador asking for help sounds more serious than the housekeeper doing the same.”

“I assure you that we don’t—” Aziraphale started but Crowley cut in.

“Fuckin’ bollocks, I can’t fuckin’ believe it! Did we really come all the way from London because Mrs. Fairfax here thought she was seeing something? Again? How many times more, Aziraphale? How many?”

“Crowley!”

“Thank you for proving my point, Mr. Crowley. Now, since you are here, maybe I could walk you through the details?”

“Of course. We could sit in the car—”

“Yeah, that would look suspicious as fuck,” Crowley grunted but Aziraphale promptly ignored him and went on.

“—or if there is a nice little café or bakery somewhere in the town with a quiet table in a corner where we won’t be overheard, that would suit us even better, wouldn’t it?”

Mimi Tracy considered both options. Although conspiring in the back of a 1926 Bentley sounded like a scene from a Cold War spy novel, she couldn’t let herself get carried away by the allure of romantic scenarios. Also, a single, not-young-enough lady should never sit in the backseat of two complete strangers’ car—not even if at least one of them looked as gay as a picnic basket.

Especially if at least one of them was probably gay. What was the point of risking a woman’s virtue if nobody was interested in taking it? Even though Mr. Shadwell, the houseman, occasionally called her “the Painted Jezebel” to express his opinion that her colourful style did not match her age (or so he said), Mimi Tracy had a strict sexual moral code that didn’t encourage flirting when it would be wasted effort.

“There is a nice little bakery just around the corner. I’ll walk you there.”

Twenty minutes later they were sitting on a bench in a small park: Mimi Tracy in the middle, Aziraphale on her right, fondling a bag of muffins, and Crowley on her left, sipping plain black coffee from a paper cup. They looked like a colour scale that stretched from white to black with a patch of rainbow in the middle. Aziraphale sat ramrod straight while Crowley sprawled over the backrest as much as possible on a bench designed for two and a half people at most. Thanks to his sunglasses, Mimi Tracy couldn’t decide if he was sleeping or just basking in the sun but at least she had Aziraphale’s full attention. Well, eighty percent of his attention; the rest of it was reserved for the muffins.

“Please, tell us everything about the supernatural experience that you mentioned over the phone.”

“Ah, yes. Let’s see. Where should I start?”

“At the beginning?” Crowley suggested.

“Perfect. Well, ever since I was a little girl—”

“I didn’t mean the beginning of _your_ life!”

“I could sense otherworldly presences. It’s my gift, as I like to call it.” Mimi Tracy found she was rapidly becoming good at the whole ‘ignoring Crowley’s sarcastic comments’ trick of which Aziraphale seemed to be a master. “When we moved into the house, I immediately sensed a sort of presence, and it only grew stronger in the last three weeks. Sadly, Mr. Dowling only laughed at me when I tried to warn him about this presence around us, and he told me I was seeing things where there was nothing. Which is quite the point of my gift, actually.”

“And did you?” Aziraphale asked, frowning. On Mimi Tracy’s other side, Crowley seemed to be more interested in Aziraphale brushing crumbs off his coat than in her story but it was hard to tell. Maybe he was just resting his eyes on the pond behind them, who knows. “I mean, did you see something or was it just a sense?”

“At first, it was just a sense like, like when you feel like you’re being watched but when you turn around, nobody is behind you. Then I started to notice the small things. Noises coming from empty rooms, open doors that should have been closed, misplaced objects… And the lights! They keep flickering and switch on and off at the most unexpected moments.”

“Trouble with electricity, perhaps?” Of course it was Crowley who suggested this possibility. The guy was the epitome of doubt.

“Then I hope that the house is insured for random blackouts due to ghosts.”

“Wait a minute,” Aziraphale held up a soft, pudgy hand. “So far you’ve been talking about a presence. Are you telling us that there is a ghost? That you actually saw it?”

“Yes, I did,” Mimi Tracy nodded with utmost serenity. “And the encounter cost me my hair dryer. Just as I was plugging it in, the circuit suddenly overcharged and the bathroom went dark.” She paused for effect, tactfully keeping the information that since it had happened early morning, if anything, the bathroom went dim. Certainly not pitchblack. “Then I saw it.”

“In the darkness?” There again, sowing the seeds of doubt.

“It was glowing in a faint blue light. Like it had sipped the electricity out of the room.”

“And what did it look like?”

“It didn’t have a specific shape. I mean, it _did_ resemble a figure—like a tall, thin man without a body or any features. I’m saying tall but I could only see it in the mirror above the sink and when I turned around, it was already gone. Like a flashlight—turned on, turned off.”

“Did you notice anything else? Did it have a smell or—?” Aziraphale asked and Mimi Tracy wondered if they were playing good cop, bad cop. Or, in their case, good ghost hunter, bad ghost hunter.

“The temperature in the room dropped drastically.”

They contemplated this information in silence for a few minutes.

“If we were on TV, I’d say you saw either Bruce Willis or something alien.”

“Very funny, Crowley.” Mimi Tracy was no prophet but she would have guessed that Crowley wouldn’t get to pick the channel for a while in the Fell-Crowley household. “Shall we focus on the facts?” Aziraphale turned to Mimi Tracy. “I presume we can’t just, ah, waltz in and inspect the house undisturbed, can we?”

“Well, it would certainly be difficult to explain. Unless…”

“Unless?” He prompted her to go on. “We’re open to suggestions.”

“You could apply for the vacant positions,” Mimi Tracy suggested. “The Dowlings hired me and Mr. Shadwell back in London when they decided to move to Tadfield and there is this lady from the village who comes to cook, but they still couldn’t find a nanny nor a gardener.”

“A nanny?” Crowley repeated in disbelief.

“They have a son, Warlock. He’s two years old.”

The two men exchanged looks at this— or at least, Aziraphale glanced in Crowley’s direction and his sunglasses weren’t turned away. After spending an hour in their company, Mimi Tracy guessed they were married, and at some point in their marriage they had perfected nonverbal communication.

“So? What are you planning to do?” She asked because she didn’t have all day and if they planned to refuse her, they should tell her as soon as possible. Maybe she should take matters into her own hands and chase that ghost down with a butterfly net.

“Well, we need to think about it. We must start investigating by inspecting the house closely and even that sounds like a challenge, and we need a plan but we can’t make a plan without thinking—”

It sounded like Aziraphale had been trying to set up a new record for ‘how many times can you put _we_ in a sentence?’.

“All right, all right, I understand.” Mimi Tracy waved him off. “You will keep in touch, right?”

“Yes, we will— we will call you.”

All in all, they looked like really kind men, Mimi Tracy concluded. They just needed some pressuring.

“Wonderful! Have to go back to the house but it was a delight meeting you two. Looking forward to hearing from you soon!”

And she left them sitting there because that’s how you elegantly leave a scene.

Contrary to Mimi Tracy’s assumptions, Aziraphale and Crowley weren’t married, nor business partners in the classic sense. While working for two different paranormal investigation companies and having their own respective bosses, they came to an arrangement after drawing the logical conclusion that the country clearly didn’t have enough ghost problems to justify the presence of two companies. They could have competed with each other, but it seemed easier to split all the costs and troubles (and the payment in the end) so they simply decided to work on the cases together. On paper they were still operating as agents for Salt & Holy Water Inc. and Graveyard Inc., and did all the paperwork to keep up the facade. Their bosses never noticed.

“So, what do you think, dear boy?”

“Ngk.” Crowley adjusted his sunglasses. “I think the lady is gaga.”

Aziraphale nodded. “She certainly comes through as odd.” He raised a perfectly manicured hand when he noticed the twitch in Crowley’s jaw as the sign for an upcoming sarcastic comment. “But I don’t think she’s lying; if anything, she’s truly mental at least. She narrated the events with a dramatic air but without hysterics.”

“Relax, angel, you’re analyzing a possible case, not a Henry James novel.”

“I’m merely trying to decide if we should waste time on getting into the house, investigating a case, only to end up not finding a supernatural entity. May I remind you what a disappointing season we’ve had so far? Summer is almost over and we’ve only got one actual ghost on our record.”

“Then it’s lucky we are ghost-hunters and not real estate agents, or that would be a real bad record.”

“Anyway, this case might turn out to be another dead end.”

If Aziraphale hoped for a reaction, none came, as Crowley was busy sending his empty coffee cup flying into the nearest bin. By chance (or by decades of friendship), he knew how to get his friend’s attention.

“On the other hand, there is a child.”

“Yeah, that really changes the perspective. I mean, children are like demon-magnets, right?”

“That’s what my experience says, yes.”

“So if a child is in possible danger, we ought to investigate the case. It’s the least we can do—after all, we’re professionals. It’s not like they can work it out for themselves.”

“How true.” Aziraphale nodded. “Now, let’s head back to London. Shall we, my dear?”

“Back to London? Already?”

“Why, we have plenty to do before we return. We need to choose our faces wisely, so to speak.”

With such long legs as the pair he had, Crowley shouldn’t have had a problem with keeping up with Aziraphale, but apparently, catching up both mentally and physically at the same time almost made him trip.

“What do you mean by—”

“Remember that party?”

“Which one?”

“Where I dressed up as Oscar Wilde and you as Mary Poppins—”

“Oh, right, the party we both vowed to forget!”

“Excuse me, that was one memorable corset.”

Crowley quickly turned his head to hide his blush, pretending to inspect a very remarkable medlar tree. That night was memorable for many reasons—mostly because he was young, he was wearing a corset and these two sounded like solid reasons to make a move on Aziraphale. Before he could act on this impulse, they managed to have such a huge row they didn’t talk for half a year. Eventually, they came round, started working together and everything was fine. Not that Crowley got over his little crush—if anything, it only grew stronger by every passing year—but he decided to keep it under control. He figured that his little feelings had been unrequited and not seeing Aziraphale for half a year had been more than enough. If keeping his friend meant repressing his romantic thoughts— He could do it. Although it was hard to keep it under the metaphorical lid when Aziraphale decided to compliment his corset style from decades ago. But Aziraphale was one kinky bastard, of course he would remember a detail like this.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“I’m talking about method acting and applying for positions in the Dowling household.”

When the meaning of Aziraphale’s words reached him, Crowley stopped so abruptly he got a fair idea how the Bentley felt every time he hit its brakes a bit harder than necessary.

“No way.”

“Don’t fall behind, my dear, the Bentley is right there.”

“But— Aziraphale! We can’t— You don’t mean to— Do you? Ngk.”

But Aziraphale did mean to. Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide. All three of these were correct, and Crowley had learnt something else that had proven to be an invaluable lesson during their longstanding friendship—that Aziraphale was both very intelligent and extremely dense at the same time. For someone who appreciated stability above everything else, he decided to work in the ghost-hunting industry, where his intelligence had saved their necks many times and his stubbornness risked their heads on even more occasions. If Aziraphale meant what Crowley was thinking he meant— well, that would turn out to be his most brilliant idea so far or his dumbest. Only time would tell.

“I mean,” Aziraphale said, giving Crowley a meaningful look before switching his gaze to the Dowling Estate, “there is a child.”

Crowley gulped and followed the direction of Aziraphale’s gaze.

The architecture of the house was plain but very pleasing to the eye: a solid, honest English gentleman’s residence of mature red brick, with seven sash windows, a handsome canopied front door with a fine brass knocker, and three stone steps down to the pavement. Instead of belonging to an English bachelor or Austen wannabe, it was occupied by an American ambassador, his family, a houseman, a peacock-looking housekeeper, and probably at least one supernatural entity. A malicious one? Highly possible.

“Fuck, okay. Let’s do it. Get in the car, angel.”

“Excellent! Do you think we can go over the details during lunch? I was thinking about...”

The rest of the sentence was drowned in the roaring of the Bentley’s engine. They drove out of Tadfield the same way they had come, the first raindrops of an upcoming summer storm drumming on the hood of the Bentley.

At the Dowling Estate, without anyone entering or exiting, the library door slowly opened with a long, shaky creak.


	2. Chapter 2

“Jezebel, we’ve run out of condensed milk again!”

“I already put it on the table for you.”

“Aye.”

“Now drink your tea before it gets even colder, there’s a love.”

It was their second morning at the house and Aziraphale didn’t know where to look. He had a sweet tooth but he also prided himself on having excellent taste, hence watching Mr. Shadwell pile nine cubes of sugar into his tea, then pour condensed milk into it made his stomach churn. Mimi Tracy made considerable efforts to brighten the morning but the wild contrast of her white apron and her peacock coloured dress didn’t help Aziraphale’s sufferings. Yesterday was his first official day as the newly appointed gardener of the estate, and he spent the majority of it trotting up and down in the garden, inspecting the plants and trying to figure out the best way not to kill all of them. Good thing he brought a couple of books on the topic—he just wished he had been more prepared for the exercise part of the job. His work required some legwork but he was not used to prolonged physical exertion, which resulted in a lot of aching muscles in the morning.

But the main reason for constantly averting his eyes was Crowley. Aziraphale had pleasant memories of Crowley wearing a corset _decades_ ago but those must have faded with time because the man dressed up as a prim and proper lady looked unspeakably gorgeous. His looks got Aziraphale’s traitorous body to come up with a number of unexpected responses: his heart was beating too fast, butterflies were having a bebop party in his stomach, and his lungs left him short of breath. When he came up with his plan, he forgot to calculate in his romantic feelings for Crowley. A huge mistake.

Aziraphale had never acted on said feelings but could never get rid of them either. Making a move on his business partner? It would have been unbelievably reckless and unprofessional. He thought he had kept it under a perfectly secure lid—then he encouraged Crowley to dress up in far too alluring drag and it shook the foundations of his self-control.

They didn’t want to show up together to avoid uncomfortable questions, such as ‘Are you two married?’. Planning out the details of their incognito, Aziraphale contemplated the pros and cons of a fake marriage. Any interaction between the two of them would have looked less suspicious, yes, but they would have had to share a room. Then there would have been only one bed. Brother and sister? They could have never blamed their dissimilarities on a different father. Cousins?

“You’re overthinking it, angel,” and that was the end of it.

Everything went according to plan. Crowley parked the Bentley in a garage in Oxford, then headed to the Bodleian’s toilet to change clothes. (“But why the Bodleian?”—”If we really do this, I’ll do it with style.”) Meanwhile Aziraphale, already wearing his costume, took the bus to Lower Tadfield for his interview with Mrs. Dowling. Since they didn’t have a costume rehearsal, he saw Crowley in drag for the first time only after both of them had been admitted. He was standing in the hall with Mimi Tracy when Mrs. Dowling appeared with little Warlock in her arms and Crowley by her side. All words left him; he could only stand there and gape hungrily at Crowley as he slowly descended the stairs. He was wearing a modest, well-cut suit but as he took step after step, his skirt hitched up a bit, revealing more of his long, grey stockinged legs. The little red bow around his neck was just the cherry on top.

“Tracy. Brother Francis. Let me introduce you Miss Ashtoreth, the new nanny.”

Aziraphale was oh-so-glad they hadn’t gone with his fake marriage idea; his head was already swimming with improper, oh-so-wrong thoughts about Crowley.

I AM NOT SURE THERE IS SUCH A THING AS WRONG. OR RIGHT. JUST PLACES TO STAND.

After the “introduction”, they didn’t see each other much that first day. They had previously agreed on exploring the estate separately and sharing their observations later. Sitting at the breakfast table, watching Crowley elegantly sipping his tea, Aziraphale felt that ‘later’ had come. He wondered how he should get Crowley’s attention subtly—without looking like his boss, Gabriel, who probably wouldn’t have recognized subtlety not even if it had smacked him in the face—so he tried a little wink.

Crowley ignored him.

For a moment, Aziraphale pondered if he should drop his spoon and signal to Crowley while retrieving but he quickly rejected the idea. He didn’t want to appear like some pervert peeking under the governess’ skirt. That was dangerous territory. Maybe throw a couple of sugarcubes at him? Nahh, too childish, the very equivalent of pulling someone’s hair— and in Crowley’s case, that would mean pulling off his wig. Aziraphale remembered him having long hair for a while (and he had extremely nice memories of a mean man bun), and silently lamented that they hadn’t got enough time for Crowley to grow out his hair again.

With a resigned sigh, Aziraphale gave up. He would just leave the kitchen and loiter around until Crowley caught up.

“I think it’s time to check on the peonies.” He vaguely remembered something about peonies in August. (If his head hadn’t been crammed full with recently gained information about garden plants, he would have _actually_ remembered that peonies were spring flowers and rarely bloomed in August.) “Thank you for the scrumptious breakfast.”

Crowley caught up with him in the hall.

“What did you find?”

“Nothing so far. The child looks perfectly normal, without any trace of demonic possession.”

They were speaking in half-whispers, their esses hissing and coiling around them in the cold silence of the marble walls.

“Good.”

“So, what’s the battle plan for today?”

“I’ll take a look at the library. Maybe I can find something about the history of the house or the families who used to live here. I think you should keep your eyes open around little Warlock, but the real work comes after midnight. We never caught our ghosts in broad daylight, after all.”

Crowley opened his mouth to answer but a sudden rattling sounds above their heads captured their attention. Aziraphale looked up and could see the exact moment when the fancy chandelier decided to say goodbye to the ceiling, but didn’t have time to react.

“Watch out!”

Long, firm fingers curled around his shoulders and pushed him, until his back hit the wall, while the chandelier came down, crashing into the floor with such force that it fractured the tiles. Looking at the spider web-like pattern it left, one didn’t need to imagine too hard what it would have done to their skulls had they stayed in the same spot.

It was Crowley, who pushed him to safety; Crowley, who was still holding onto him, panting, his face so close that their noses almost bumped. Aziraphale knew he should have been at least a little put out about the incident, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Crowley's soft-looking lips that had also got so temptingly close.

“You okay?”

He could feel Crowley’s breath ghosting on his own lips.

“Quite fine, thank you. And I suppose I should thank you for, uh, for saving my—”

“Don’t say that!” Crowley snapped but still didn’t let go of him. “Luck of the devil, that was it.”

Suddenly Aziraphale felt a very different tingling creeping up his spine (very different from the butterflies in his stomach telling him to snog Crowley senseless right now), and with almost inhuman effort cast a brief side-glance. His suspicions were confirmed.

“I don’t think this is appropriate, Miss Ashtoreth,” he whispered, sending a significant look first towards Crowley’s hand on his shoulder, then to his left.

“Don’t you now?”

“I mean, don’t you feel like we're being watched?”

Crowley followed his gaze and immediately released him, taking a step back. “Ahh.”

Although the young lady standing at the library’s door started the staring contest, she looked just as taken aback as them.

“Oh. Sorry to break up the intimate moment.” She adjusted her glasses; a gesture born out of self-consciousness rather than necessity. “Never mind me. I’m just looking for someone.”

“We’re new!” Aziraphale squeaked. A BIT OF AN EMASCULATING SOUND, REALLY.

“I’m Anathema.”

Somewhere upstairs a door slammed with a loud bang. They instinctively looked up, though they didn’t have a chance to locate the exact source of the noise. When Aziraphale turned back to Anathema, he found that she had already disappeared somewhere. He looked at Crowley to exchange a few puzzled glances with him, but he was greeted by his friend’s mocking smile.

“‘We’re new?’ Really? Very smooth.”

Aziraphale promptly ignored the comment; he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there was something wrong with finding random strangers in the middle of the house. Even if they were innocent-looking, pretty girls. Although pretty might not have been the most accurate word… How he wished he had taken a better look at her! She had a pale, attractive face, and her whole appearance radiated the modest but confident shine of extremely valuable pearls—but apart from the vague idea that she somehow resembled a Tahitian pearl, Aziraphale couldn’t conjure up anything else about her. His memory had never failed him like this. He could remember reading that Tahitian pearls formed from black lip oysters, but he couldn’t remember how the girl he had been talking to not five minutes ago looked.

“Who do you think she is looking for?”

“Fuck if I know.” Crowley shrugged. “Look, I need to go up to the nursery.”

“Yes. Right. Shall we meet here at midnight to recount the deeds of the day?”

“The deeds of the…? Yeah, sure. As you wish.”

Aziraphale noticed that Crowley’s little red bow was slightly askew, and automatically reached out to fix it.

But nothing seemed to work out for him that morning. He was stopped mid-motion by a child’s unmistakable laughter— and the next moment a boy ran through the hall and disappeared towards the kitchen. Even though he merely caught a glimpse of him, Aziraphale knew he hadn’t seen the boy before. Mimi Tracy informed them that the only child in the house was little Warlock, while this kid must have been around ten or eleven years old.

Aziraphale exchanged a look with Crowley—the look of mutual professional understanding.

“An apparition.”

Furthermore, a child’s apparition, in broad daylight. I WOULD HAVE CALLED IT AN INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT, but Aziraphale thought something along the line ‘I don’t like it; it’s spooky’.

“Shouldn’t we follow it?”

“You can’t follow an apparition. It just appears and disappears, but you know that.” Crowley frowned. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Perfectly fine. Everything is tickety-boo! But we should get a wiggle on!”

“See you at midnight then?”

“Yes, I shall wear midnight!”

“What?”

But Aziraphale was already lost in his own head.

After his hasty departure, he spent a very anxious morning in the garden, and he could only hope he didn’t do anything irreversible to those poor plants as his thoughts whirled around in his head. During his career he had been tasked with more gruesome cases, but this was his first undercover operation, and even with decades of professional experience it felt like learning to walk all over again. He prayed for a quick conclusion of the case, the sooner the better, because he wasn’t sure he could keep up the facade too long. Gardening was Crowley’s hobby; Aziraphale was just a pathetic excuse for a gardener.

“These roses are beautiful, aren’t they?”

Mrs. Dowling’s appearance surprised Aziraphale so much he nearly dived head-first into said roses. He had spent the last half an hour hovering over them, wringing his hands and fretting with might and main.

“I was so glad for the rain the other day. The unusual heat of this summer really got me worried for the flowers.”

“Yes, the roses are lovely.”

“Actually, the whole garden is beautiful. I’m looking for the perfect spot for some light reading but I can’t decide!” She made a wide gesture with her free hand to emphasize the greatness of the place. “It would be ideal for the most fairytale-like wedding ever. The gazebo over there? If Titania and Oberon said their vows there, they would have never quarrelled.”

“Quite. Even the Cottingley Fairies would be happy here.”

“You know, when we took the lease of the house, we were told that weddings used to be held here. Mhm. But I bet none of them were fairy-themed.”

“Did you have a fairy-themed wedding?”

“It’s funny, I can barely remember my own ‘big day’.” Azirpahale didn’t like the sound of the self-effacing laugh that accompanied this statement. “But I shouldn’t keep you up.” Mrs. Dowling readjusted the picnic plaid and the book she was holding. “There.”

Aziraphale bowed a little, “Please, let me know if you need any help.” and it earned him a small smile in return. “May you find your perfect reading spot.”

_May your cocoa never get cold,_ he thought some hours later, perched on the edge of his bed, nursing his empty mug. The day was long and the night promised to be even longer; he needed to be armed with all the knowledge about paranormal activities, and chocolate improved cognitive functions. Also, he needed to pump some sugar into his system if he didn’t want to fall asleep mid-hunt.

With a sigh, Aziraphale put the mug down and fished out a torch from his bag. He pondered if he should bring the thermos with the holy water as insurance but decided against it. Nothing about the case smelt evil so far. It was spooky, yes, and Aziraphale was fairly sure they had missed some clues vital for piecing it together, but he couldn’t feel threat dangling in the air. Well, he could only hope that the night’s revelations wouldn’t prove him wrong.

In the village the church clock struck midnight.


	3. Chapter 3

In Crowley’s opinion, the fluffy, smiling clouds on Warlock’s pyjamas could distort any innocent child’s budding fashion sense, but Nanny Asthoreth’s principle was solid. If children behaved themselves well and took their bath without fussing, they could choose their night attire—and if Warlock wanted to wear periwinkle blue pyjamas with sheep-like clouds on it, well, then be it.

Most of Crowley’s experience was with children possessed or haunted by evil forces, and except for one temper tantrum caused by some boiled carrot, Warlock proved to be much easier to handle so far. He was a healthy two-year-old boy, the content king of a nursery stuffed full of toys and decorated with dinosaur wallpaper. Soon his legs would grow longer, himself taller, and a whole new world would open for him: a garden to be explored, a kitchen with the promise of biscuits and glasses of milk, a master bedroom with a bed to be jumped on... Everything in and around the house looked perfectly normal and innocent—everything apart from the deafening silence and emptiness, but who was Crowley to judge, really.

WELL, EVERYTHING APART FROM THAT AND THE LACK OF CATS, IF YOU ASK ME.

“Nanny?” came Warlock’s sleepy voice from his car-shaped big boy bed. “Sing to me?”

“Of course.”

They might not have had much time to prepare, but Crowley didn’t come empty-handed. He had years of practice in wearing skirts and high-heeled shoes, but he was no angel from The Blue Angel Nightclub, so he needed to work on his performance skills. Singing for a baby without falling out of character? He had built a neat short program from lullabies and nursery rhymes, and practiced it in the bathroom. Now, his efforts were about to be tested.

Crowley adjusted the blanket around Warlock, then sat down in the armchair and crossed his legs at the ankles.

Showtime.

_Sleep my little baby-oh_

_Sleep until you waken_

_When you wake you'll see the world_

_If I'm not mistaken..._

_Kiss a lover_

_Dance a measure,_

_Find your name_

_And buried treasure..._

_Face your life_

_Its pain,_

_Its pleasure,_

_Leave no path untaken._

By the time he finished the song, Warlock was fast asleep, and Crowley felt like Bob Dylan must have felt when the whole Royal Albert Hall was applauding him. This lullaby proved to be a great hit after all.

There was a gentle knock on the door frame; Mrs. Dowling was peeking into the room.

“Is he asleep?” she mouthed and Nanny Ashtoreth answered her with a sharp, curt nod that Crowley had practiced for a whole afternoon in front of a mirror.

Mrs. Dowling tip-toed to Warlock’s bed, bent down and planted a soft kiss on her son’s forehead, while Nanny Ashtoreth politely averted her eyes from the intimate moment. Then she straightened back up and turned back to the door the exact moment that Nanny Ashtoreth chose to rise from the armchair, and they bumped into each other.

“Sorry,” they whispered in union and giggled. Well, Mrs. Dowling giggled, Nanny Ashtoreth only allowed herself a small smile. (Crowley didn’t feel comfortable with his feminine laughs as there had not been enough time to master them.)

They left the nursery, shutting the door as quietly as possible, then listened if any noise came from the room. Nothing. Warlock didn’t even stir in his sleep.

Mrs. Dowling leant against the wall with a sigh. “Honestly, I’m so glad to have you.”

“I’m just doing my job,” Nanny Ashtoreth said. _Tell me about double meaning, huh?,_ Crowley thought.

“No, really, I mean it. Tracy is great but she is always here and there, doing things, taking things out of my hand— I don’t understand how all her buzzing energy doesn’t get lost in this huge house. It’s just too big to be filled.”

“Do you feel lost here?” The question was too personal for a simple employer–employee relationship, yet it fit the dim lights of the corridor.

“I don’t know. Maybe? Surely, when Thaddeus said he would come down to see us every weekend, I had no illusions. It’s not that he’s having an affair— I’m a horrible person, but I sometimes wish he actually had someone else. Maybe if he had a lover in London, he would make efforts to keep up this whole family façade.”

Crowley winced at this and Nanny Ashtoreth silently agreed. The quiet girl talk they had prepared themselves for was rapidly turning into something uncomfortable. Something that could result in embarrassment and dismissal next day.

“Mrs. Dowling—”

“Yes, thank you for mentioning, that’s what I’m trying to say. The Dowling Estate! Thaddeus honestly thinks that Warlock needs the peace and quiet of the country, and that he can turn this place into some children’s paradise by buying it and giving it a snooty name. See, I think Warlock needs his father. But Thaddeus lives for his work and maybe, maybe I should live for my son…” She ran a hand through her hair, trying to compose herself. In Nanny Ashtoreth’s opinion (which might have been shared by Crowley), Mrs. Dowling looked a bit _too_ composed all the time for someone who was supposed to be at home and run the household on her own. “Warlock is my pride and joy, but honestly, when they warned us that the place was haunted, I almost felt relieved.”

Crowley stiffened. (Nanny Ashtoreth’s spine was stiff enough already.)

“What do you mean, haunted?”

“I’m sure they weren’t serious; it was just, you know, town gossip. There are strange noises, of course, all around the house, and doors opening and closing without any help… Not to mention the trouble with the electricity! But nothing more serious.” Mrs. Dowling shrugged, almost apologetically. “Not that I wish for a vengeful spirit or anything— What I mean is, apparitions are terrible, but life is terrible, too, and some demonic company would have been a nice change.”

In Crowley’s opinion, a vengeful spirit or a possessive demon was anything but nice company. Also, they tended to target people weighed down by personal difficulties and feed off on emotional distress—grief, for example, but the persistent heartache for an inattentive husband would do as well.

“I’m sorry that I poured it all on you.” Mrs. Dowling sniffed, signalling that she was ready to end the conversation—right when Crowley was ready to pounce on it. “The evenings can be hard here. I’m still getting used to the house.”

“It’s a big house.” Crowley wanted to kick himself for making the comment of the year, but Nanny Ashtoreth was having none of it. There was some comfort to be handed out and detective work to be done. “Big and old enough to host a ghost or two. Trust me, I’ve seen many things; a little occult presence here wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

A fond smile appeared on Mrs. Dowling’s face. “I bet nothing would surprise you at all, Ms. Poppins. Just a spoonful of sugar and the demon will go away! Or something like that.”

“Actually, salt is more advised against demons.”

“I thought that was for slugs.”

HOW PRACTICAL AND FORWARD THINKING.

  
  


A few hours later, when Crowley appeared with a sleeping Warlock strapped onto his back, he thought he had made a reasonable decision. Judging by the frown on Aziraphale's face that was obvious even in the darkness of the hall, he had not.

“What are you doing?” Aziraphale hissed.

“I’m taking care of Warlock.”

“You could have left a baby monitor with him!”

“No way, angel. Absolutely no fucking way I’m leaving Chekhov’s baby monitor with him, only to hear demonic muttering and creepy scratching through it when we are at the farthest corner of the house.”

“Point taken. Should I switch on the torch or will it wake him up?”

“Just don’t shine it into his eyes and he’ll be fine,” Crowley grunted, because seriously? Tripping over his own feet in the dark would surely wake up Warlock more than a tiny torchlight. “But what the hell are you wearing?!”

When Aziraphale clicked on the light, it became obvious that he had put on tartan pyjamas for the expedition.

“It’s camouflage. If we get caught, I’ll say I’m sleep-walking.”

“And that explains my presence how? I’m your extremely vivid dream projected into reality?”

“Maybe we get caught separately.”

Crowley’s eye-rolling was hidden by the darkness. “As if. We never split up.” _As if_ he would let Aziraphale wander off on his own and get into trouble. Nope. Not on his watch. “Whatever. Where do we start? Bet you have a plan.”

“Obviously.” Crowley would have bet his head on that there had been some eye-rolling on Aziraphale’s part too. “I conducted a rather successful research expedition and found the floor plans of the house in the library, which shows a quite impressive basement—”

“Of course there is a basement.”

“—that should be checked out—”

“I don’t understand why we call them basements. Should be called demons’ lairs or devil’s pits.”

“—and, according to the plans, we should find a secret tunnel—”

“Yes, nice, why shouldn’t we have a secret tunnel, too?”

“—but about that the papers were quite obscure—”

“A secret tunnel is just an open invitation for a basilisk to the party. Or a vampire. Yeah, more like a vampire. How is Comrade Dracula today?”

“—so its entrance is either in the basement, or not. Maybe somewhere else. Also, there is the question of the—” So far Aziraphale had managed to ignore Crowley’s comments, but when his partner grasped him at his elbow, that finally threw him out of his balance. “What now?”

“Don’t you see?”

Crowley stretched out his free hand and pointed somewhere in the way of the back door, his bony finger a white line in the dark. Aziraphale squinted his eyes, trying to find the spot— and there it was.

“Are those… ghost ducks?” he uttered in awe.

“I think so.”

“Should we follow them?”

“Nah. They’re just ducks, not the minions of Lucifer.”

“But why wouldn’t ducks rest in peace?”

“Maybe they fancied some late snack?” Crowley suggested. “Like, _late_ because they’re dead.”

The procession of ducks had reached and passed them, trotting steadily towards the main door. 

“Wait, don’t you have your demonmeter thingy with you?”

With a huff, Aziraphale reached into his pocket and pulled out a voltmeter-looking device, shaking a few crumbs off it. (NOT ONLY DUCKS ARE ALLOWED LATE NIGHT SNACKS.) “It’s a ghost-a-meter, thank you very much.”

“It’s an EMF meter you tinkered with and managed to make more shiny.”

“And look how it shines!” Aziraphale gently waved it around and indeed, the device shone brightly. As he raised it above his head, it cast a halo over his blonde curls, making him look positively angelic. “The house is practically bursting with supernatural energy on so many different levels! The ducks are basically just shimmering projections of other presences; they are fed by their more focused, stronger energy.”

“Like one big ghostly get-together.” For the sake of not waking Warlock, Crowley restrained himself from dramatic clapping. “I say we check out that basement. The night is short, and I have to chase around a two-year-old tomorrow, so no sleeping in for me.”

  
  


The stairs leading to the basement were creaky and poorly maintained.

“After you, my dear,” Aziraphale gestured and Crowley raised an eyebrow.

“You’re very keen on following someone, aren’t you?” Nevertheless, he gripped the bannister (it felt grimy under his hand—Nanny Ashtoreth would not be happy about that later…) and started slowly descending the steps. “Care to tell me what has gotten into you today?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

_Liar,_ Crowley thought fondly. Sometimes he just really wanted to smack Aziraphale’s stupidly beautiful face for trying to shut him out from time to time.

“Aziraphale, I say fine when I’m not fine, you say tickety-boo. And usually you don’t turn _tickety-boo_ after seeing an apparition.”

“Shouldn’t you pay attention to where you’re going?”

“It’s okay, I’ve already hit bottom.” He turned around, hoping to offer a helping hand on the last few steps but he was late. Aziraphale arrived, the light of his torch quickly sweeping around.

“It is unfamiliar terrain for me, that’s all.” Finding a switch next to the stairs, Aziraphale tried it and immediately a faint but warm yellow light filled the place. “As in, this whole dressing-up business— and I kindly ask you, don’t say it was my idea.”

The basement looked perfectly ordinary: dusty, cluttered with objects of every shape and quality, the air heavy with the smell of mould and oblivion.

“Would you feel more comfortable if I had let you wear the fake teeth?”

Aziraphale snorted. “I mean that we aren’t welcome here, not really. The human inhabitants don’t want us here, at least not as paranormal experts, and supernatural entities aren’t famous about their hospitality. We’re about to face a fight on two fronts.”

“You’re being a dramatic dumbass. The very moment an angry spirit shows up and bares their teeth, we’ll be more than welcome.”

“I hope you’re right.” He walked around, peering behind half-collapsed cupboards with the help of his torchlight, lifting sheets and checking out chairs missing a leg, rummaging in cardboard boxes. “Gabriel thinks this is a perfectly usual case, so the American ambassador filing complaints could have some uncomfortable consequences.”

In Crowley’s opinion Gabriel was a wanker, but both Nanny Ashtoreth and Aziraphale would have deemed that crude language, so he didn’t voice his thoughts.

“Look, angel, if you lose your job, we can always become freelancers.”

“I don’t think we would survive the competition.”

“Yes, you do,” Crowley said, drawing out the last word, but it only earned him an exasperated look from Aziraphale. “Come on. You know we’re the best.”

“ _You_ know it could never work.”

It stung, but Crowley quickly erased the pained expression from his face. Not that it mattered. Aziraphale wasn’t even looking at him, he was too busy shifting a few boxes in order to examine better some fancy, ancient mirror.

“Right. Whatever. I can always go freelance, with or without you.”

Now that made Aziraphale turn around.

“You would give up our arrangement?” he asked in a carefully neutral tone.

“Yeah, why not?” Crowley scoffed. “And once I’m my own boss, I won’t even think about you.”

“I see.” Once again, Aziraphale turned his back on him, gently tapping his fingers on the mirror. “I’d miss you, you know.”

The last bit was so softly added, Crowley nearly missed it, and how he wished he hadn’t heard it. Because that was so Aziraphale, pushing him away one moment but stringing him along in the next, and Crowley could never be properly angry with him. It was an unfair game that Crowley still hadn’t learnt to win—or even, to play.

To prevent himself from immediately taking back his words, Crowley stepped to the furniture nearest to him. As he pulled off the sheet covering it, it was revealed to be many pieces of furniture: a stack of white chairs. He checked the whole corner and it confirmed his suspicion—white chairs of the same design everywhere.

“Someone planned an outdoor wedding.”

The lightbulb exploded, splattering the floor with glass pieces, and wrapping the place in heavy, warm darkness. Instinctively, Crowley turned his back to the wall, so no glass could reach Warlock, while reaching out blindly towards where Aziraphale stood. He could see his white silhouette, faintly reflected back by the mirror— that or it was a ghost, he couldn’t decide.

“Aziraphale?” he called out. “Are you okay?”

“Perfectly fine, thank you. Just, uhh, dropped the torchlight and can’t find it. Such a mess, honestly.”

“It’s a basement, what did you expect.” Crowley hoped that the eye-rolling was audible in his words. (Nobody in the United Kingdom had more loose and well-practiced eye muscles than these two.) “Wait, I’m coming over to you.”

He took step after cautious step, glass crunching under his shoes, until he could feel Aziraphale’s presence—close enough to smell him (the faint mix of washed-off cologne, sunshine, and sandalwood), close enough to breathe in his body warmth.

“Honestly, Crowley, I’m alright.” The trouble with whispering is that it’s difficult to distinguish tones. For example, Crowley couldn’t tell if Aziraphale sounded annoyed or, but maybe he was just reading into it, flustered. “I’m an adult, you don’t need to hold my hand.”

“I’m not holding your hand.”

There was a heavy pause.

“Ahh.”

Crowley tried to move towards Aziraphale’s faint sigh, at the same time as Aziraphale stepped, or rather, tumbled forward, and it was a miracle that Warlock didn’t wake up when they collided.

“Shit. Sorry,” Crowley hissed, massaging his chin.

“Apologies.” There was a bit of shuffling, followed by the appearance of the ghost-a-meter, shining brighter than a solar explosion. “Almost forgot about this one.”

“Angel, you’re _literally_ blinding me. Can’t you tone it down?”

“Supernatural energy is charging it up, not me.”

“Just wrap it in a handkerchief— You have a handkerchief on you, don’t you? Of-sodding-course you have.”

“Right.” Aziraphale turned around but, although the ghost-a-meter emitted a steady light even under the handkerchief, they couldn’t spot anything. ANYTHING THAT HAD NOT BEEN THERE BEFORE, OF COURSE. “How shall we proceed?”

“Cautiously?”

The light was dimmed when Aziraphale bent down and picked up something. “My torch!”

“Great. I was kinda hoping you’d found the secret trapdoor of Daddy Hamlet’s ghost.”

“No luck there.”

“Do you have the floor plans with you?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Then how about this: we go to the library, check out those plans, crack a secret code that reveals that damned tunnel to us, so we can finally wrap up this night?”

“This is our job, Crowley!”

“I know!” No greater pastime than whisper-shouting in the depths of a haunted basement, huh? “But unless we find a skeleton in your mystery tunnel and connect it to a lost spirit, we won’t have gotten much done tonight. Apart from encountering some vague otherworldly experience, we’ve found zero clues so far.”

“Fair point.”

Greatest mysteries of the night, ranked by Crowley: 1. Where did those ghost ducks come from? 2. How could Aziraphale act so calm?

“And it’s a good plan, my dear. Let’s go to the library then!”

“You and your libraries, angel,” Crowley said and this time he didn’t even want to kick himself for letting his exasperation be covered by fondness because. Finally. They were getting somewhere.

After emerging from the basement (and realising that the light could have been switched on the top of the stairs), they slipped into the library.

“You can use the torch,” Aziraphale offered. “The ghost-a-meter will make enough light for me.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“You start on this side, we’ll meet in the middle, all right?”

“Your side is much smaller,” Crowley grumbled just for the sake of arguing as the room was perfectly rectangular. “Wait a minute. This isn’t the plan. I’m recalling the plan, my brilliant plan, and this is definitely not _my_ plan. We’re about to do something time-consuming and—”

“Oh, shush, my dear.”

“Did you just shush me?”

“I think I did.” Aziraphale sounded oddly pleased with himself. Crowley liked to please Aziraphale— by bringing him chocolate or taking him out to dinner, not by agreeing with him! Agreement was not his style. “Think of it as scanning the library in case I missed something.”

“Like what? The handle that reveals a hidden doorway?”

“For example.”

“I’m so not pulling random books off the shelves. I’ve seen _Addams Family_ and that slide looked deadly.”

“That’s why you’d love that slide if you found one.”

“Maybe. But I can’t slide with a toddler on my back, so. I’m willing to check out that posh Victorian chest of drawers while you get the floor plans but that’s all.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_.”

“But it’s a George III mahogany serpentine fronted chest.”

It was one sturdy piece of furniture and right now Crowley really wanted to bang his head on it, no matter the era. But Aziraphale would have chided him for chipping such an antique shit, and he didn’t want to bring that storm over his head, so he started rummaging through the drawers with a sigh.

“Have you found anything yet?”

“Fairy lights. Not the supernatural sort, though. Just fancy LED stuff.” It was coiled like a serpent, and was as easy and cooperative to be stuffed back to its place as a hungry python. In Crowley’s experience, problematic inanimate objects served like neon signs for ‘ghostwork ahead’. “I wonder why anyone would keep these in a library.”

“They make a very cozy ambience.”

“I didn’t peg you for such schoolgirl vibes.”

“Personally, I prefer candles, but I can appreciate the aesthetics of fairy lights.”

Oh, how Crowley wished that Aziraphale had appreciated his aesthetics too. Probably a bit too rockstarry and cynical for his taste.

“Also,” Aziraphale went on, not even looking up from the floor plans, “I hear they are quite popular accents for outdoor weddings.”

Suddenly every light in the room turned on and the radio on the corner table started playing “ _Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?_ ”, at maximum volume and at the middle of the song. After everything that had happened that night, the Queen broke the camel’s back and woke up Warlock, who immediately started to cry.

Crowley tried to keep his cool.

“Abort mission!”

He couldn’t keep his cool.

Aziraphale was wringing his hands, a clear sign of being close to fully launching himself into fretting. “Everyone is going to wake up!”

“Yes, thanks for the input! How do we prevent that?”

“The lights!”

“The music!”

Crowley darted across the room for the radio while Aziraphale rushed to the lightswitch. The next second the library sunk back into complete darkness and silence, only to be broken by Warlock’s wailing.

“We need to cover the noise!” Aziraphale slapped his forehead at the same time when Nanny Ashtoreth said very firmly, “The darkness is frightening him.”

He rushed to the lightswitch, turning it back on, with Aziraphale passing him on his way to the radio. As Freddie Mercury returned with his lament about being a poor boy, Nanny Ashtoreth unbuckled Warlock from her back, and started to gently rock him.

“Do we really need to alert everyone about—”

“—your obsession with Queen? Maybe not.” Aziraphale switched the radio off again.

“Why, I wasn’t the one sleep-walking and deciding to raise the dead with some late night music, Brother Francis,” Nanny Ashtoreth answered pointedly.

“Oh, right, because it’s my fault now!”

“Obviously,” Crowley mocked, breaking character for a second. Warlock was not amused as he kept on hiccupping and crying fat tears.

“Can’t you just sing him to sleep?”

“Only if you do the vocals,” came the retort but it backfired because Crowley forgot that Aziraphale liked to sing.

“All right. On your count, darling.”

“Ngk.” He nearly choked on his tongue. “Seriously?”

“Yes. Just, please, not some Disney song.”

“Snob.” Crowley would have rolled his eyes if he hadn’t been frantically searching his brain for a song. The night must have been wearing him down as Nanny Ashtoreth’s perfect lullaby repertoire failed to come back to him; he could only think of one song. “Okay, here it comes. _Ohh, you’re my best friend…_ ”

“ _Ooh, you make me live,_ ” Aziraphale joined in.

“ _Oh, I’ve been wandering around/But I still come back to you..._ ”

“ _Still come back to you!_ ”

“ _In rain or shine/You’ve stood by me girl/I’m happy at home…_ ”

“ _Happy at home!_ ”

“ _You’re my best friend._ ”

Crowley looked down at the child in his arms and saw that Warlock had gone back into a peaceful slumber.

“It worked!” he whispered, earning a sunny smile from Aziraphale. “Or he fainted from the shock.”

“Crowley!” That stupid, shy smile didn’t want to leave Aziraphale’s face. “I think we made a nice duo.”

“Yeah, we should transfer to showbiz.” Adjusting Warlock in his hold, Crowley nodded towards the door. “Or we should go to bed. This night has been nothing but a double helping of hell with extra devils.”

“Don’t say that. You’re making me hungry.”

“In two hours it’s breakfast time, so. Off. To. Bed.” At this point he was so tired that he slipped and added, “Or I’ll have to spank you.”

His mind must have been playing tricks on him (IT WAS NOT), but it seemed that Aziraphale had perked up and went beautifully pink at the thought. He practically purred, “Yes, nanny.”

“Good night, angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lullaby Crowley sings to Warlock is from _The Graveyard Book_ by Neil Gaiman.


	4. Chapter 4

Just as Deirdre Young, the cook, finished chopping the vegetables for the soup, Brother Francis finished his tea and put down his cup with a contented sigh.

“Thank you, dear. It was marvellously refreshing.”

“You’re welcome.”

Although Brother Francis was certainly an odd duck, he seemed very kind, and, in her opinion, he didn’t stand out in the rather peculiar household. Not that it mattered much. Every member of the house was nice in their own ways, and after the Oxford restaurant where she used to work had closed, Deirdre Young was more than happy to work again.

“What are you making today?”

“Just green vegetable soup, and honey sesame chicken.”

“I’m sure they’ll be scrumptious.”

Nanny Ashtoreth chose this moment to walk into the kitchen, balancing little Warlock on her hip with her right hand, holding an empty breakfast tray in the other. Despite the summer heat, she was wearing a high neck black blouse with the ever-present red little bow. Even though she was reminiscent of Mary Poppins, Deirdre Young couldn’t help but admire her style— and judging by the look on Brother Francis’ face, he was doing some admiring, too. _A pity,_ she thought, _that Nanny Ashtoreth would surely deem a workplace romance unprofessional._

Her musings were cut short when Adam, her son, dashed in with Dog hot on his heels.

“Good morning!”

His cheerful-yet-unexpected appearance even shook Nanny Ashtoreth’s famous calmness a bit, while Brother Francies looked ready to fall through his own eyes with surprise.

“Adam,” she chided him, “what did I tell you yesterday?”

“But, Mum, you forgot your phone at home!” He miracled it out of the infinite depths of his pockets, and Deirdre Young could only hope that her phone didn’t spend too much time in the company of pebbles, twigs and what-not. “Here.”

“Thank you, sweetheart, but you mustn’t roam around.”

“It was for a good cause!”

“And what about yesterday, hm?”

Before Adam could have come up with another “but Muuum”, Warlock made a gurgling sound, and suddenly Deirdre Young remembered that they had spectators.

“Oh. Sorry. This is Adam, my son. Adam, these are my colleagues, Miss Ashtoreth and Brother Francis.”

“Good morning,” Adam said politely, and even Dog wagged his tail a little.

“Look, Miss Ashtoreth, this is Adam, her son!” Brother Francis whispered in far too much awe for the situation.

“Thank you, _dear_ , for pointing it out,” came the sharp reply, but even Nanny Ashtoreth had a funny look on her face—Deirdre Young would have called it ‘puzzled’ if puzzlement had ever dared to go any near to Miss Ashtoreth. (But probably just kept its respectable distance.)

There was something going on between them, and while Deirdre Young had taste only for good meals, not for gossip, she couldn’t help but speculate if somebody had already made a move on the other and failed royally.

“See you at home, sweetheart,” she said to Adam pointedly, but ended the sentence with a kiss on his forehead. It might have hurt his teenage pride but made her motherly heart swell with warmth. “Thank you for the phone!”

Adam was already rushing out of the kitchen, shouting a mixture of ‘bye’ and ‘sorry’ as he nearly knocked into Mrs. Dowling.

“Sorry for that, I told him—”

“It’s alright. In fact, I had a lovely chat with your son yesterday.”

Deirdre Young wished the floor would open and swallow her.

“I’m so sorry. Adam and his friends used to sneak into the garden and play here. Old habits die hard, I guess. I promise I’ll talk to him. Again.”

“No, really, it’s fine. It’s a big house with an even bigger garden—the more kids the merrier, right? I can’t wait till Warlock wreaks havoc in the garden so fast we won’t be able to catch him.” With a silent gesture, Mrs. Dowling asked Nanny Ashtoreth to hand her Warlock, and she said her next words with her nose buried in her son’s curls. “He’s a little angel, but if he takes just a bit after me, that will change soon enough.”

“Careful what you wish for. They grow up so fast.”

“So true. That’s why I have this idea—it came to my mind just minutes ago—to paint Warlock under the apple tree. To capture him in this little garden of Eden, so when he is older, I can sit and cry about what a perfect, tiny boy he was. Do you ever do that?”

“All the time. Sarah, my elder, studies Spanish and Arabic at Magdalen College. I look at her and wonder where the time went. She was a baby yesterday, and now she’s preparing to spend her second college year—in Jordan!” Deirdre Young smiled fondly—they were stepping onto the slippery slope of “mum talk”. An English woman to her core, she wasn’t gushingly sentimental about her children, but with Sarah moving away and Adam entering adolescence, the lines of emotionalism were getting thinner with every passing day. “She did her share of sneaking in here. Gosh, I remember the night when Arthur, my husband, climbed into this garden because she was hiding here after her first break-up… But that came later. First they just played weddings here with her friends.”

“I hear this property used to be very popular as a wedding place.”

The cupboard opened with a slow creak, revealing the teacup set hiding in it, but both women were too lost in the conversation to do more than batting an eyelash at the accident.

“Yes, it’s such a beautiful place, one that no bride could resist.”

“I know, right? Even the lights are perfect, like, _everywhere_. I wonder why they stopped holding weddings here.”

“The last wedding ended very tragically—or, more precisely, it never took place due to a fatal accident.”

“No! Please, tell me more about it.”

“Well, it happened eleven years ago… I know that because tomorrow is Adam’s birthday, and Arthur has this little anecdote about sitting in the waiting room and reading the Tadfield Advertiser, or more like, flipping through the pages as my screams were so loud he could hear them through the closed door and couldn’t concentrate on a single word he read. _Men_.”

Deirdre Young rolled her eyes, a little smile playing around her lips, and Mrs. Dowling nodded knowingly. “They have no idea about childbirth.”

“But then he read that the wedding crashed because the groom died, and for a moment he forgot he was about to have a son. That is, until he heard Adam wail, and realised that he had signed up for the whole worrying-for-your-kids-for-the-rest-of-your-life business. Again.”

Brother Francis jumped up from his seat with such unusual eagerness that it caught everyone’s attention. (EVERYONE’S, EXCEPT YOUNG WARLOCK, WHO HAD SPENT THE LAST FEW MINUTES PLAYING WITH HIS MOTHER’S NECKLACE AND FELT LIKE A BREAK-THROUGH WAS CLOSE.)

“Sorry, right timing. I mean, I almost forgot about the roses, but then thought of them just on time. Please, don’t mind me, ladies. Carry on!”

He left the kitchen with admirable speed, and before Deirdre Young could wrap her head around that, Nanny Ashtoreth followed suit.

“If you want to paint Warlock under the apple tree, I must bring down sunscreen for him, and a blanket, preferably.”

“Preferably tartan,” Mrs. Dowling mouthed when Nanny Ashtoreth disappeared from hearing range, then glanced at Deirdre Young. “Do you think something is going on between them?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“I kinda feel tempted to talk more about weddings when they’re around, just to make them show their hands— does that make me a horrible boss?”

“I don’t think so, Mrs. Dowling.”

“Please, call me Harriet.”

“Only if you’ll call me Deirdre.”

“Gladly. Do you mind if I sit Warlock on the counter? So I can help you with the food.”

“Oh, that’s not— I mean, you really shouldn’t— What about your painting?”

“Painting can wait, this is far more exciting.” She put Warlock on the counter and placed a sound, wet kiss on the tip of his nose that made him giggle, then frowned. “I’m acting like a true Prada-wearing devil, aren’t I?”

“Pardon?”

“Like a horrible boss: gossiping about my employees, disturbing your work, getting excited about others’ tragedies… As if the tragedy of the never-to-happen wedding was part of a cheap summer novel, not real people’s lives.”

“We’re all stories in the end.” Mrs. Dowling, Harriet’s, eyebrows raised so high and so fast it was a wonder they didn’t fall off her face. “I’m not that wise; it’s from _Doctor Who_ , I think.”

“It’s a nice thought, though.” The way she tickled Warlock’s tummy, lost in her head, Deirdre Young began to suspect that her son was Harriet’s anchor and focus point in her vast world of empty spaces and indifferent faces. It was her third week at the house and Deirdre Young hadn’t met Mr. Dowling yet. “I wonder if we knew when we were going to die, we would lead better lives.”

IF PEOPLE KNEW WHEN THEY WERE GOING TO DIE, I THINK THEY PROBABLY WOULDN’T LIVE AT ALL.

“Or we would be just waiting for the hammer to fall.”

“Was that a Queen reference now?”

“Sorry, I can’t help it. I have a Queen-obsessed daughter and a _Doctor Who_ fan son. Pop culture has absorbed me.”

“It happens to me all the time. Just with Care Bears.”

They both giggled, and Deirdre Young held up her phone. “I like to listen to music while cooking. Makes the meal tastier. What do you think?”

“I think that Freddie Mercury would really spice up this chicken.”

  
  


Aziraphale headed for the library, of course, but before he could have crossed the threshold, familiar bony fingers grabbed onto his elbow and stopped him. Sighing, he mentally braced himself and turned around to face Crowley. He should have gotten used to his nanny looks by now, but his breath still hitched whenever he lay his eyes upon Crowley’s perfectly constructed features.

“How may I help you, Miss Ashtoreth?”

“What the hell is this with you now?”

“I’m afraid you’re breaking character, dear.”

“Look who’s talking. You’ve been running around this house for days, like demons are chasing you— are demons chasing you?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“You make it sound like it’s an absurd idea. Well, it’s far from absurd. This house is so full of otherworldly presence that every single time I open the cupboard to take out a glass, I have to push a dozen ghosts out of the way.”

“My dear, there is absolutely no need for dramatics.”

“Really? Then why did you run from the kitchen like that?”

“I certainly didn’t run.”

“Semantics.”

Aziraphale pondered gently prying Crowley’s fingers from his elbow, but he rather enjoyed feeling them holding onto him.

“We mistook Adam Young for an apparition, which is a disgrace, honestly, but it might signal that there are far fewer ghosts wandering around than we suspected. Not to mention, far less dangerous.”

“Could you stop doing this thing of yours?” Crowley groaned.

“What thing?”

“The thing where you say one thing and think something else.”

“I certainly don’t do any such thing,” Aziraphale protested, thinking that maybe Crowley was a tiny bit right. “I just want to verify a theory.”

Perhaps he should have shared the details with Crowley— except that there were no details to be shared, only a fancy theory that Aziraphale needed to prove or discard. The theory went as far as “oh dear, this case might be much more innocent than we thought”, which could have lethal consequences if proven wrong. He needed to keep Crowley with Warlock.

“In the library? Is this about secret tunnels again? Because if you want to look for secret tunnels in plain daylight for a change, I can help you with that.”

“It has got nothing to do with secret tunnels, so thank you, but I’ll manage on my own.”

Crowley was growing irritated, that much was obvious from the tightening of his fingers on Aziraphale’s elbow. Aziraphale would have appreciated the contact more if he himself hadn’t grown more annoyed with every second.

“Last time I checked we worked together, so please, work with me here.”

“We don’t work together. We have a time- and trouble-saving arrangement, that’s all.”

“So what, you’re working on this case alone now?” Crowley spat in a very un-nanny-like manner, and Aziraphale made a last effort to reason with him.

“There is something about this case I just can’t put my finger on it. I think we’re missing a vital clue here, something in plain sight we failed to notice.”

“Then let me help! How can I help? Charades? Or should we try a guessing game?”

Venom was dripping from Crowley’s words, and at last Aziraphale lost his patience.

“Leaving me alone would be a great help, thank you very much.”

“Fine,” Crowley practically growled it, and Aziraphale could feel his breath on his face, and they were staring into each other’s eyes from mere inches apart, and when did they get so close? Part of him wanted to snog him into tomorrow, pardon his French, but the reasonable part of his brain wanted to push Crowley away—but very gently. “At least do the bell, book, candle thingy.”

Aziraphale’s heart melted a little at Crowley’s softening voice.

“I don’t think excommunication will be necessary.”

“Okay, then read your books, light a candle to keep away the bogeyman, and ring a bell if you need my help.”

Now. Aziraphale needed to take a step back now before he ended up doing something reckless.

“Thank you for the advice—”

“But when have you ever listened to me?” Crowley’s smile was half-annoyed, half-fond. “Fine, don’t call for help. I won’t even bat an eyelash when you get eaten by a demon.”

Finally, Aziraphale wriggled himself out of Crowley’s grasp and mesmerising closeness, and took a step back, over the threshold of the library. “See you later, my dear.” And firmly shut the door in his face.

“Boyfriends, huh? Difficult species.”

Aziraphale nearly jumped out of his skin. When he turned around, he spotted a familiar figure in the far corner of the room, inspecting the rug in front of a bookcase.

“Oh, Anathema, dear. Hello.”

Was it really too much to ask for a bit of peace and quiet?

“Don’t worry, I’ll be gone in a moment.”

“Please, don’t go, not on my account.” Thinking one thing and saying the opposite? Never. “I’m just looking for something, it won’t take a minute.”

Since Mrs. Young tipped him off, Aziraphale knew exactly what he was looking for and rushed right to the bureau that held huge piles of the Tadfield Advertiser. It was a neat collection; Aziraphale silently thanked the caretaker for picking it up every single morning and putting it away so conscientiously. A great service for humankind, or at least, a certain ghost-hunter. Aziraphale selected the volume from eleven years ago and started to read without getting comfortable in an armchair first, not to mention making a cup of tea or cocoa. (Although he wouldn’t have minded a cup of hot liquid at all—maybe it had to do with it being on the north side of the house, the library was surprisingly chilly, even with the summer heat outside.)

What he learnt from the short yet lurid article, made his blood run so cold that no cocoa could have warmed it up.

“Anathema.” Aziraphale looked up and was surprised to find the girl adjusting a different carpet on the other side of the library. He must have been so absorbed in his reading he didn’t notice her crossing the room. “Oh, dear. You were going to be married to—”

“Don’t say it!” she shrieked like a banshee but her warning came too late.

“Newton Pulsifer, who di—”

Aziraphale couldn’t finish the sentence as there was a crackling, the unmistakable sound of electricity overcharged, and he could smell something burning— then a thin, blue line of light appeared in the middle of the room, and started growing.

“Too soon!” Anathema screamed again, scurrying to the expanding blue light so fast Aziraphale couldn’t discern her movements. She pulled out a necklace, unclipping it and holding out one end for Aziraphale. “Take it!” The shrieking was getting too much but Aziraphale obeyed the request. “Now hold it like your life depends on it—which it might, actually.”

_What an idea,_ Aziraphale thought, eyes fixed on Anathema’s hand as she coaxed the pendant on the lace slip into the middle of the blue light, _my life pending on a pendant._

“What are we doing?”

“Anchoring him.”

“Him?”

“Newt. My fiancé.”

The light intensified for a moment before it got sucked into the pendant, making it shine with an eerie light. Aziraphale let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, took a fresh one— and noticed that something else intensified as well. The heat in the room. The smell of burnt carpet and curtain on fire.

“I’m afraid your fiancé set us on fire.”

“Yeah, well, the summoning must have caused an electrical fire.” Anathema clutched the necklace in her hand, its pulsing light now cut off by her fingers. “We have more pressing matters to be handled.”

“More pressing than that the door and every window frame are on fire, hence all our exit possibilities are blocked?”

“I don’t really— Ah. Right. There.” She was pointing at the far end of the library, more precisely, at a flowery patch of tapestry between two bookcases. “There is a hidden door.”

Aziraphale ran to it like his heels were on fire (NOT YET) and tapped the wall. It didn’t budge, not a single bit, but he could feel the emptiness behind it.

“The handle is hidden behind _Paradise Lost_.” Anathema was standing next to him now and Aziraphale wondered how on Earth could she move so quickly. “Not the favourite book of the architect, I assume—”

“—but not serving as the handle, just shielding it, the book can be still read without revealing the door. Clever.”

Anathema nodded. “You might want to take a step back.”

When the door swung open, Aziraphale was glad he had taken her advice, otherwise he would have ended up with a broken nose. Now, he ended up in awe and fascination.

“Wonderful. I must admit I started to doubt its existence.”

“Why, every ghost story needs a secret door.”

They pushed through the narrow opening, Aziraphale with a little more difficulty than he felt comfortable. As Anathema pulled the door closed behind them, they got enveloped by darkness. Aziraphale wished he had had a torch with him—or his ghost-a-meter at least—and was about to ask Anathema to use the pendant as a light source, when she said, “Follow me, but watch out for the stairs.”, prompting a new question that took the place of the previous one. _What stairs?_ Aziraphale wanted to ask as he looked at Anathema… who seemed to be faintly… glowing?

“You're a ghost, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Oh, fuck.”


	5. Chapter 5

It all went down like a lead balloon.

Nanny Ashtoreth went upstairs for sunscreen and a plaid blanket, and ended up with a hiccupping toddler, his shocked mother, a bunch of aggravated teenagers, a surprisingly collected housekeeper, and a puzzled houseman. Not to mention the presumably dead partner.

Or: Crowley told Aziraphale to light a candle and now he managed to set himself on fire with it.

When Shadwell came shouting ‘Fire! Fire!’, Crowley knew that something went wrong. This was when Nanny Ashtoreth should have taken charge, but suddenly she felt like a poor disguise for a useless ghost hunter. She could do little else but watch the firemen put out the fire. Then they were gone, advising them not to go back for at least a day, not even to check and save undamaged possessions. After minutes spent helplessly looking at each other, Mrs. Young stepped in, and led Mrs. Dowling and Warlock to the vicarage to ask Mrs. Dibley to take them in for the night. Shadwell was left to guard the estate, in case Brother Francis miraculously turned up, and Mimi Tracy was left to keep an eye on Crowley until the vicarage was ready to accept them all in.

The firemen didn’t find anyone in the library, nor in any other part of the house. There was no sign of Aziraphale, dead or alive, but Crowley could only hope that the vanishing act played a part in proving Aziraphale’s theory. Better be it smoke and mirrors than smoke and… well, destruction to the atoms. Hellfire could do that to a body, leaving nothing behind, and Crowley couldn’t imagine living in a world with no Aziraphale in it. The mere thought of it sent Crowley in a screaming panic combined with a dose of rage against all otherworldly things, blowing their cover somewhere along the line, while Tracy tried to keep him from running into the burning building, until Shadwell sent a bucket of cold water into his face, effectively soaking both of them. Crowley ended up under the apple tree, hopeless and wig-less, wrapped in a blanket, and silently dripping with water and sorrow.

The afternoon passed in a blur.

Then Adam Young arrived with three friends of his, after sunset and his mother knowing absolutely nothing about him being on the estate— again. Then Mrs. Dowling came back with a fussy, tired Warlock, because after seeing her house on fire there was no way she would let him out of her sight, thank you very much. Then Aziraphale and Anathema walked out of the house—

Wait, what?

I WILL NEED TO CHECK IF THIS IS HOW YOU BUILD SUSPENSE PROPERLY.

“Aziraphale!” Crowley was on his feet in an instant. “Aziraphale! You made it!”

His usual swift moves were lost in an awkward stumble but there might have been a hug (Heaven forbid his vivid imagination) waiting for him at the end, if Anathema hadn’t stepped in front of Aziraphale.

“No, wait!” she shouted, momentarily putting Crowley off, thus squaring his stagger. “You can’t kiss him!”

“I don’t want to kiss him!”

“Yes, you do. But you can’t, not yet.”

“Anathema!” Adam Young rushed forward. “What happened?”

“It’s, er, complicated. There was a change of plan.”

“But the wedding! We need to make it happen! Make it _real_.”

“Yes, working on that, actually—”

But now everyone started to wake from their stupor.

“What wedding?” Mrs. Dowling perked up, simultaneously with Mimi Tracy, who asked, “Why can’t he kiss his husband?”

“He isn’t my husband!” Crowley protested, which earned a surprised “Then is it your wedding?” from Mrs. Dowling, immediately followed by Mimi Tracy’s outcry, “You call him angel all the time!”

“He’s fighting demons; it’s a funny nickname.”

It was meant to be an explanation but only called for further explaining.

“What demons?” Now Shadwell boarded the train of unending questions too.

“They’re professional ghost hunters,” Mimi Tracy hushed him, before adding pointedly, “Or at least, I thought they were professionals.”

“Yeah, well, ghost hunting is the keyword.” Crowley rolled his eyes, trying to mask with flippancy the uncomfortable feeling of being called out for a very good reason. (AS IN, FAILURE AND INCOMPETENCE.) “We’re professional _ghost hunters_ , not undercover agents or Broadway actors.”

“Although we found ghosts,” Aziraphale chimed in, finally. Since rising like a phoenix (not from his own ashes but from the library’s, the only fly in the ointment), he hadn’t uttered a word. Crowley was becoming worried about a cat getting his tongue somewhere between nearly dying and not dying at all.

CATS DON’T DO THAT.

_If_ Aziraphale didn’t die. Although he didn’t seem very otherworldly, there was a faint glowing around him, embracing him like a showy aura, so maybe the question of being dead or alive shouldn’t be cast away so quickly. Or maybe Crowley should have kissed him, against all advice and better judgement, just to test if Aziraphale was solid and warm and alive enough.

“What ghosts?”

“How many?”

“I was so right!”

“But the wedding—!”

“What wedding?”

In the cacophony of questions and Warlock crying, another thought nagged Crowley’s mind. He couldn’t just cast the problem of “is the love of my life dead or alive?” aside, so he wondered—if the firemen couldn’t find anybody anywhere inside the house, then…

“Angel! Where the hell have you been all afternoon?!”

  
  


Aziraphale had spent the afternoon in an empty guest room upstairs—except for the short time when the firemen inspected the room, so he and Anathema had retreated to the secret tunnel. For _ghostly_ reasons, Anathema didn’t want to be seen with such commotion outside, inside and basically every side.

“But can’t you make yourself invisible?”

“Yes and no. I can but it wouldn’t solve my problem at all. I need to get married like yesterday.” Anathema sighed. “Or more like today, or I won’t get another chance for a year. Or possibly never. With my fiancé locked in a pendant and with half the world having the time of their lives in the garden— Yeah, possibly never.”

“Can I help you in any way?”

She eyed Aziraphale from head to toe, taking him in, and Aziraphale was only ninety-five percent sure she wasn’t measuring him for the right coffin size.

“You don’t look scared.”

“You don’t look hostile,” he retorted. So far Anathema had been the most collected spiritual entity he had ever seen, and trust his professional experience, malevolent creatures weren’t famous for their ‘haunting and chill’ attitude. “Ghosts are real. This much, I know. However, if you’d be so kind to fill me in the details…”

“Right.”

Since Mrs. Dowling used the room for hiding Warlock’s birthday present, his surprise rocking horse was standing in the corner. Anathema absent-mindedly pushed its nose, making it rock back and forth, and watched it lost deep in her thoughts, before facing Aziraphale.

“There are things that tie us to a place. Commonly it’s violence, the spilling of blood, a crime. But there are others, who hold onto an emotion. Loss. Revenge. Or love. And they... they never go away because they can’t go away.” She held up the silver pendant; it was still pulsing and swinging a little with energy. “Newt had always been unlucky with electricity. And when he snuck in early to put up a string of lights in the library’s windows as a last-minute surprise for me, his luck left him for good, and the socket electrocuted him.”

Aziraphale couldn’t hold back an exclamation of horror. “But that’s terrible!”

“Right on the morning of the wedding, and I think that must be the reason why he couldn’t leave the place. Love tied his spirit here, so he took charge of the electricity. Or, more like the electricity took charge of him, and soon word spread that the house was haunted. When I more or less recovered from grief, I decided to investigate the rumour because, here comes the crazy part—”

“Oh, dear, I’ve been working with Mimi Tracy _and_ Mr. Shadwell for days. I can handle crazy.”

“Well, then. I’m a witch. I mean, I used to work as a librarian but I have psychic abilities, so I figured I could help Newt with sorcery. It was quite difficult, yeah.” She sat down onto the unmade bed, next to Aziraphale, but keeping a cautious distance from him. “I didn’t want the whole village to think me mad, not any more than they already did, so I used to come here at night, trying to find a way to let him go. Then one night as I was cycling here, I got run over by a car and that was nearly the end of it.”

“I suppose love tied you to this plane of existence.”

“Yes, that and my wedding ring. I wore it on a necklace and luckily for me, it fell off when I was run over, so I could peacefully construct myself in a whin bush. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m pretty solid for a ghost. Silver is better than gold for anchoring, but it’s a personal item. However, this pendant is silver but Adam borrowed it from his sister, so it’s not powerful enough to properly hold Newt.”

“It’s doing a fine job so far.”

“I was drawing pentagrams on the library’s floor when you barged in and summoned him early, and now firemen are everywhere, and there _is_ no library anymore, and I don’t have enough time to do the ritual!”

“What ritual?”

“The ritual that was supposed to give Newt a temporary spiritual form, so we could get married and die properly! It took me eleven years from losing my fiancé to coming _this_ close to saving his soul, but if we don’t get married today, we won’t have another chance for at least another year. And I’m not sure that next year won’t be too late, or that I’ll still have my accomplices.”

Anathema was a hair’s breadth from turning into a vengeful spirit—something that Aziraphale wanted to avoid at all cost.

“I’m so sorry for messing up your plan. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t know. Adam promised to gather his friends and bring something old, something new etc. for tonight, but after what happened, I’m not sure they’ll get in.”

“Adam Young? How do you know him?”

“Before the Dowlings moved in, kids hung out in the garden all the time, daring each other to come into the house, look for the ghost, that sort of stuff. Adam is a brave kid, and one evening I appeared earlier than I should’ve, accidentally revealing myself to him, and he was totally not freaked out by me, and we sorta became friends.”

“Well, I don’t really know him, but he has certainly found his way into the house whenever he wanted to. I think he’ll show up tonight.”

It only earned him a weak smile from Anathema.

“Still, without the ritual, I can’t marry Newt, and this pendant won’t hold him much longer.”

Aziraphale knew a lot about ghosts, but he wasn’t sure if they could cry actual tears and didn’t want to find out now, not with more pressing matters at hand. It had been the afternoon of revelations, and when the reality of the star-crossed lovers’ tragedy sunk in, it shook him to the core. Anathema and Newt loved each other, boldly and openly, yet they couldn’t fulfill their love as death separated them.

JUST TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT, I AM MERELY A CIVIL SERVANT HERE.

Unlike them, Aziraphale had never dared to act on his feelings because of flimsy excuses, and hearing their story, he realised that he might have wasted precious time out of sheer cowardice. He also ruined Anathema’s chance to reunite with Newt— or maybe not. Since Aziraphale knew _a lot_ about ghosts, based on all that knowledge, an idea was forming in his head. It required taking some risks, but if love wasn’t worth a few risks, then what was?

“Hypothetically, could a human serve as Newt’s temporary body for the wedding?”

Anathema gave him a surprised look.

“I suppose, yes, given that it’s a willing body.”

“Would mine suffice?”

“Gosh, you’re clever! What was your name again?”

  
  


“Aziraphale!” Mimi Tracy couldn’t decide if Crowley wanted to shake the extra soul out of his partner or simply tear out his own hair. Judging by the grabbing motions he was making with his hands, he couldn’t decide either. “I can’t believe you got yourself possessed!”

“It was perfectly consensual, my dear.”

_I can’t believe I got the haunting right but not them,_ Mimi Tracy thought to herself. _I must be losing my touch._

“Let me get this straight.” Mrs. Dowling stepped forward. “She’s a ghost, and Brother Francis is currently containing another ghost, who is also her fiancé.”

Anathema looked so supernaturally pale and glowy that there could be no doubt to her being an otherworldly entity. Aziraphale had the same touch of shine around himself and when he spoke, he seemed to do it in one and a half different voices at the same time. Unless he recently became a ventriloquist, it would have been difficult to deny his own spiritual involvement.

“Yes.”

“Wow.” Recovering from her initial shock, Mrs. Dowling certainly didn’t look surprised at all, not anymore. If anything, she looked almost pleased. “What do we do now?”

“We brought the things you asked for.” Adam Young held up a bulging bag. “We have onions; they’re new because Brian’s mum bought them today. I put in the old purple donkey that Sarah got ages ago, so it’s old, like she is. Wensleydale brought blue maracas, so that covers the blue part, and you can borrow Pepper’s bicycle. Although the donkey is borrowed too.”

“Aren’t you supposed to _wear_ something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?” Mimi Tracy didn’t want to spoil anyone’s fun but some situations called for a respectable lady’s wisdom and guidance.

“Pepper’s bike has a basket; you could put them into it and push the bike,” Adam offered.

“What else do you need?”

“Someone to wed us, I guess.”

“Okay, that should be easy.” Mrs. Dowling nodded, earning several confused looks. “I’m the lady of the house, I‘m running things here. I’ll marry you.”

“Sorry, what?” Finally Crowley seemed to snap out of his trance and take his unbelieving eyes off his partner. Mimi Tracy made a mental note that someday she should mention him that covering those pretty amber eyes with sunglasses was a sin. Or maybe she should let Aziraphale mention it.

“See, tomorrow I’ll have to make phone calls and fill out forms and check if our insurance covers house fire at all… And I’ll probably have to move back to London, no offense, really, but the country doesn’t really work its charm on me, not without Thaddeus. Also, if I’m not mistaken, I’m short of a nanny _and_ a gardener, so I might add interviewing new people to next week’s to-do list.” Mrs. Dowling took a deep breath, hugging the sleepily blinking Warlock tighter. “But eventually, I’ll sort everything out. I think I might be good at solving problems and taking charge, I should do it more often. However, today’s problems come first, and if I can save this day by making this wedding real, then let’s do it. You’re already eleven years late for your wedding.”

“I’ll hold Warlock,” Crowley reached out for him but Mrs. Dowling shook her head.

“No, no, I have a different job for you. After all, someone has to give the bride away.”

And that was how Mimi Tracy ended up with an armful of Warlock Dowling, instructing the kids to quickly gather some flowers for Anathema and _please, would you be so kind to let Mrs. Dowling write her speech in peace, there’s a love, oh, and don’t forget to add that beautiful white rose too_.

When she thought back to that night’s events, she remembered a succession of flights without drops, which led to the most extraordinary wedding of the century. They were waiting at the gazebo; Mimi Tracy, Mrs. Dowling, all the kids, and the co-bodyhabitating Aziraphale and Newton, watching as Shadwell and Crowley ceremoniously pushed Anathema on Pepper’s bike. She was clutching a bouquet of the garden’s best flowers (ranked by the kids), and she was radiating with love, joy, and otherworldly shine. The bag of new, old, and blue things travelled in the basket indeed.

“Anathema Device, do you take Newton Pulsifer to be your husband, bound by every law of nature on this plane of existence and in the afterlife?”

“Newt, I’ve been waiting for this for eleven years—make it twelve if we count our engagement—and I find myself at a loss for words. During the last decade I rewrote my vows several times, but I can’t remember a single version of it. I just know that I love you and I’d do anything for you and I’ll never stop loving you, come hell or high water. Or electricity. Or fire. So, yes, I do. I take you, Newton Pulsifer, as my husband.”

“Newton Pulsifer, do you take Anathema Device to be your wife, bound by every law of nature on this plane of existence and in the afterlife?”

It felt strange to witness Aziraphale open his mouth and speak in a stranger’s voice.

“Anathema, I’m sorry for messing up our first wedding, but I promise I’ll do better from now on. Actually, I think we’ve got the for better for worse part covered. I also promise to love you, to keep you, to be faithful to you as long as my soul exists, because now I do take you as my wife.”

“By the authority vested in me by the Shutzi Real Estate I now pronounce you wife and husband forever.”

The children cheered.

“You may kiss the bride.”

Mimi Tracy watched with great satisfaction as Anathema yanked Aziraphale close and kissed him. Passion was one stout pillar of a good marriage.

For a moment, it was Anathema and Aziraphale sealed together in a kiss, then, with a slight vibration in the air, something shifted and the scene changed. Aziraphale staggered back (right into Crowley’s arms), and, like a flashlight turned on, there stood a young, tall man, nearly transparent, shimmering with spiritual energy. They were still tied together by the kiss, so close that even Gustav Klimt would have appreciated it— and then they were one. Anathema and Newt melted into one white, glowing line of pure light, hot and blinding, but before the others could have covered their eyes, the newlyweds had broken into a million tiny dots of lights, travelling up to the sky.

“Like fairies,” Mrs. Dowling whispered in awe.

“Stars,” Crowley sighed in Aziraphale’s ear so quietly that only a gifted, eavesdropping and close-standing housekeeper could have heard it.

Then Aziraphale turned around and kissed Crowley so deeply that it must have been seen at least from a hundred lightyears away. (Even Shadwell, the polar opposite of said gifted, eavesdropping and close-standing housekeeper, couldn’t miss it.) A stout pillar indeed.

“Did you really want to kiss me?” Aziraphale asked when they pulled apart, and Mimi Tracy wanted to snort loudly. Would Crowley have kissed back so vehemently if he hadn’t wanted to? “Because I did want to kiss you. Still want to kiss you, in fact.”

“Good,” Crowley croaked. “How long do you think you want to keep kissing me?”

“Well, how long did you want to kiss me?”

“Forever.”

“Sounds fair.”

In the end, they didn’t set a new record for kissing. Not that night.


	6. Epilogue

_One year later_

On the first year anniversary of Anathema’s and Newt wedding-and-farewell party, guests were gathering for another wedding in the garden of Tadfield Manor, previously known as the Dowling Estate. Since it was considered as the most important event of the year for the Now and Hereafter Agency, founder and chief coordinator Harriet Dowling personally supervised every single step. The week had been heavy with rain but yesterday the sun miraculously emerged from its solitary retreat, and on the big day they woke to a blessedly dry and sunny weather. With everything on track and going as planned, right now Harriet Dowling was standing next to the birdbath, happily chatting with her clients.

“I hope everything is to your liking.”

“Nah, we hate it,” Crowley said, but before his fiancé could have gently elbowed him, he added, “Especially the care and love you put into it.”

“Everything is marvellous,” Aziraphale beamed. “I think you found your calling. A destiny wedding planner, what a beautiful idea!”

“It’s destination wedding, angel.”

Before they could have truly gotten lost in each other’s gaze, a cheery voice rose behind them.

“Don’t you know it’s bad juju to see your intended before the ceremony?”

Mimi Tracy toned down the colours a bit but never left them fully. For the wedding, she put on a light summery sweater in mint and a deep red skirt, satisfying both Aziraphale’s taste for pallid colours and Crowley’s attraction to harshness. They also both agreed that the change must have had something to do with her relationship with Shadwell. In a span of a year, it turned from ‘strictly professional’ into ‘excitingly illicit and erotic’—or at least, that was how Mimi Tracy presented it. In Aziraphale’s opinion, she and Shadwell looked comfortably domestic.

“Well, I toyed with the idea of observing this tradition—”

“But he can’t go a day without seeing me,” Crowley cut in, pretending that the same diagnosis didn’t fit him and failing royally.

“Then I shall inform you that all of your guests and your wedding cake have arrived. Believe me, that cake is a masterpiece; right now Adam and his friends are guarding it. So,” she concluded, “let us know when you’re ready to vow never lay eyes on anyone but each other.”

“Oh, you put it so nicely,” Harriet said and the two women shared a smile.

When she decided to move back to London and start her own wedding planning business, it was no question for Harriet to keep Mimi Tracy in her employment and the ex-housekeeper gladly accepted the position. Especially since she got to stay on the estate to oversee the repairs, keep the freshly renovated house in shipshape, show the clients around, sweet talk them, and boss Shadwell around with maintenance instructions. Her relationship with her employer bloomed and with Shadwell— well, it _boomed_.

“Just one moment, please.”

“Of course. Let us know when you’re ready.”

The two women walked away; Mimi Tracy went for a last inspection round, while Harriet joined Warlock and his new nanny, Susan.

“My dear,” Aziraphale started, his voice raspy with emotion, “we’re really doing it, aren’t we?”

“Come on, angel, don’t get cold feet now.” Crowley had to reach deep for all of Nanny Ashtoreth’s confidence to mask his panic. “We ventured into Bran Castle together. We analysed ectoplasm together. We did costume theatre together. We went freelance together. Compared to everything else, walking down the aisle together will be a piece of cake.”

“I like cake.”

“You should mention that in your vows.”

“And I love you.”

“Oh, definitely mention that.” Crowley’s grin was so wide and radiant that it could have been used for advertising purposes. Aziraphale could only wipe it off with their last not-married kiss.

In the past year they had gotten rather good at expressing opinion with kissing instead of eye-rolling, which didn’t decrease the amount of banter but it ameliorated their percentage of successful communication. Except for the one time when Crowley refused to tie empty cans onto the Bentley with a ‘just married’ sign in tow. Or when he declined to put on a skirt and tights for the wedding—but at last, he had grown out his hair and now had it pinned up into a man bun, much to Aziraphale’s thrill.

After they separated, with reluctance and promises of future kisses, Aziraphale cast a thoughtful glance at the building. From their point of view, they couldn’t see the library, the centre of a decade long supernatural activity, but when he spoke, they were both thinking of the same ethereal couple.

“I wonder if they’re watching us from wherever they are now.”

“Don’t think so. I bet they are too busy enjoying their eternal honeymoon.” Crowley offered an arm to Aziraphale. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

BUT I WAS. EVER-PRESENT AND ALWAYS WATCHFUL, I COULD SEE THE WHOLE CEREMONY.

I WONDER IF THEY FELT LIKE THEY WERE BEING WATCHED.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now you've reached the end of the story— and I'd like to thank you for reading it!  
> Special thanks to Henry James, Oscar Wilde, and Scooby-Doo for the inspiration.  
> Can I get a wahoo for [bisasterdi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisasterdi/pseuds/bisasterdi) for organising and running the Good AUmens event?  
> And, last but not least, my eternal gratitude goes to [chewb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewb/pseuds/chewb) for being such a wonderful and supportive beta, and for patiently navigating me through the weird things of English language. Yay!


End file.
